The University of Messina has a scientific organization and publication "Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti", see 1. What is the origin and meaning of the word "peloritana"?
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2 Answers
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It is a toponym, functionally equivalent to "Messina". Cape Pelorus is the modern Capo Peloro=Faro Point, at the end of the Peloritani Mountains in North East Sicily, where Messina is.
There is a navigation instrument called the pelorus, said to have been named after Hannibal's navigator Pelorus (the eponym of Cape Pelorus), unjustly executed by Hannibal; one exposition has more detail than most such, but (sadly) no references. See also the entry for Peloris in the 1853 A New Classical Dictionary of Biography, Mythology, and Geography by William Smith, which is no better, references-wise.
answered Mar 23, 2022 at 22:01
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Also the term "pericolanti" (precarious) can sound strange, and the meaning of the name is explained on the website of the academia:
Nasceva così, ufficialmente, la Periclitantes, Peloritana Regia Academia, con chiaro riferimento alla configurazione del territorio cittadino, circoscritto, da una parte, dai monti Peloritani e proteso, dall’altra, verso quel braccio di mare insidioso, ben rappresentato nel logo del cenacolo da un veliero che solca le acque agitate dello Stretto, rese ancora più infide dalla presenza dei mostri omerici Scilla e Cariddi, metafora, come lo stesso segretario Carlo Vitali doveva spiegare, del pensiero umano, sempre in bilico «fra varie difficoltà e controversie» nel difficile raggiungimento della Verità, e degli uomini di scienza, continuamente «inter utramque viam periclitantes».
i.e.
Thus, officially, the Periclitantes, Peloritana Regia Academia was born, with clear reference to the configuration of the city's territory, circumscribed, on the one hand, by the Peloritani mountains and stretching out, on the other, towards that dangerous strait, well represented in the logo of the cenacle by a sailing ship ploughing through the agitated waters of the Strait, made even more treacherous by the presence of the Homeric monsters Scylla and Charybdis, a metaphor, as the secretary Carlo Vitali himself had to explain, for human thought, always poised "between various difficulties and controversies" in the difficult attainment of Truth, and for men of science, continually "inter utramque viam periclitantes" [exposed to danger from both sides].
